Ken Lewenza and Donald Fehr, two guys with union issues on their minds, have joined keyboards to author a piece on the evils of management, noting that hard-headed bosses are all the same, whether they own a billion-dollar hockey team or a Caterpillar plant in southwest Ontario.

There’s no denying that last week’s dramatic breakdown in negotiations between the NHL and NHLPA was bad news for hockey fans holding out hope for a partial season. After a bizarre Thursday session that left Don Fehr shaking his head and Gary Bettman shaking in anger, it feels like we’re closer than ever to writing off the 2012-13 season completely.

It must have seemed like a great idea. Appeal to all those beer-drinking factory guys who are the backbone of hockey, and get it printed in the Toronto Star, where left-wing readers would slap their foreheads and declare, “Gee, I never thought of it like that.” Then maybe one of the Star’s “progressive” columnists could get involved and write a tirade about Gary Bettman, and what a beast he is.

And it would have been a good idea, if not for the fact it’s totally ridiculous. In fact, one of the few nasty things you could say about Gary Bettman, without me agreeing wholeheartedly, is that his situation is a lot like that of a factory boss trying to put the squeeze on his downtrodden assembly-line workers.

The problems start in the first paragraph:

“You might think that a typical Canadian worker (who makes, on average, about $22 an hour) would have little in common with a professional hockey player whose annual income is measured in six or seven figures — other than that they both love Canada’s national sport.”

You’re right on that: I do think there’s little in common. Right off the top, factory workers make $22 an hour; the average salary in the NHL is $2.45 million. If a facto ry worker gets laid off, he or she is going to have a very hard time making ends meet. If an NHL player sits out a year, that means he has to make his $2.45 million stretch over two years, which works out to $1.24 million a year. Not really that tough, ya know? Hockey players, as Fehr points out, have short careers. But even four or five years at $2.45 million is easily enough to coast through life on, if you’re not foolish enough to blow it all.

So right off the bat, the two union bosses are losing the argument. Their next claim is that ruthless owners – whether in the NHL or otherwise — are deploying “an increasingly common, aggressive management strategy: locking out workers when they won’t accept management demands for deep concessions.”

“It used to be that unions were the more likely party to precipitate a work stoppage, in their quest to lift wages and labour standards over time. Nowadays, in contrast, it is employers who feel they hold the upper hand. They are willing to shut down operations altogether, imposing substantial economic losses on their workers, on their own firms, and on the broader economy, until they get what they want. And they want a lot: historic concessions in wages, benefit packages, and security for the working people who ultimately produce the wealth.”

Spot the hole in this argument? According to the authors, when unions stage a work stoppage, it’s “in their quest to lift wages and labour standards over time.” When owners do it, it’s “to get what they want.” Employer lockouts are an imposition on the economy, on workers and on the firms themselves. Worker walkouts are to better the lot of the working stiff, even if it means forsaking weeks or months of income and risking the death of the company itself, as 18,500 striking employees at Hostess recently learned.

Despite what he may believe, the average Canadian hockey fan is not necessarily an hourly paid Joe who drags his lunch bucket to the factory every day at dawn for an eight-hour shift

So what we have here is a very clear double standard. Workers who use their leverage to get what they want are good; an employer trying to run a company so everyone gets paid and the company turns a profit is all about greed.

It’s not a great argument to be making, especially for Fehr. Despite what he may believe, the average Canadian hockey fan is not necessarily an hourly paid Joe who drags his lunch bucket to the factory every day at dawn for an eight-hour shift. Some even have an education, and can recognize the difference between their life and that of a hockey star.

As Fehr points out, the NHL “has enjoyed seven straight years of record revenues (ever since the last lockout back in 2004-05). Last year revenues reached $3.3 billion, an all-time high. The industry is profitable, and the franchises worth more than ever (the value of Toronto’s franchise alone is now estimated at more than $1 billion).”

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True. And guess what? The players have been making a killing as a result. The reason the owners forced the latest lockout is because the contract they imposed on the players after the last one turned out to be so abysmally flawed that player salaries continued going through the roof. The average salary has almost doubled since the players “lost” that lockout. Player agents found so many loopholes in the deal that managers were screaming for relief, when they weren’t competing (just before the lockout was called) to sign their stars to long-range deals at even higher salaries.

No one – not me, anyway — is going to argue that the owners are a bunch of nice guys. Individually there are undoubtedly some decent individuals among them, but as a group they have the instincts of a horde of Huns. They’re not even very smart: They all but demolished the players in the last round of bargaining seven years ago, forcing them to accept a new deal that ended up making the players richer than ever. And who do they have negotiating their latest deal? Gary Bettman, the same genius who led them victoriously into the last one, and who is one of the few people on earth who could make me feel sympathy for unions.

One of the few nasty things you could say about Gary Bettman, without me agreeing wholeheartedly, is that his situation is a lot like that of a factory boss trying to put the squeeze on his downtrodden assembly-line workers

NHL players have good reason to stand up to the owners, if only because of the league’s terrible record when it comes to financial decisions. Bettman’s the guy who turned down a $212 million offer for the Phoenix Coyotes, so the league could run them at a substantial loss for two years before unloading them for much less to a different buyer. He’s the guy who insisted the Atlanta Thrashers had to stay in Atlanta, losing money, for as long as possible, rather than move to Winnipeg and sell out every seat for years ahead. This is not a guy you want to entrust with your last five bucks.

But to equate an NHLer to a factory stiff is too much to expect, perhaps even of “progressives” who read the Star.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.